He was born in Colotlán, Jalisco. He studied in the Military School and he was an outstanding student. In 1894 he got the degree of colonel. In 1903 he participated in the campaign against the Mayan Indians in Quintana Roo and in 1910 he fought against the zapatistas of the state of Morelos. When Porfirio Diaz resigned to the presidency, he escorted him to Veracruz. In the maderista government, he obtained the appointment of military commander of Mexico City.

"In the rebellion of February 19, 1913, he joined to the insurrectionists and he started talks with the ambassador of the United States in Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson, to dismiss President Madero, to whom he commanded to capture along with Vice-president Pino Suárez.

When he obtained the resignation of both authorities, he called the Congress, who accepted the resignation of Madero and named temporary president Pedro Lascuráin. And he named Huerta Secretary of Interior and resigned as well so Huerta remained President. This maneuver took them less than one hour, the night of February 18, 1913. Four days later, Madera and Pino Suárez are assassinated. Many were nonconformist with the new government; Francisco Villa incited to rebellion all the north of the country. In October, 1913, already in total revolt, Huerta dissolved the Congress. In the elections supposedly he emerged triumphant, but the Villa’s supporter forces had obtained sounded triumphs and a big part of the Republic had been rebelled. In the north Villa prevailed breaking the powerful federal army, in the east Pablo González advanced and by the northwest Alvaro Obregón.

The federal army that defended the government of Huerta was defeated definitively in Zacatecas on June 24, 1914. Huerta resigned on July 15 and left the country. He was in England and in Spain, and finally he went away to New York (1915), where he was received by a group of Mexican interested in that he returned to the country. Huerta in Europe had started relations with agents of the German government who offered him arms and economic support , in the United States he was in close contact with the naval and military attachés of the Germany embassy in Washington.

The government of the U.S.A. was alarmed because of these actions and put Huerta under strict monitoring, finally, when he went in way to El Paso, Texas, along with Pascual Orozco, were made prisoners. First they were free on bail, but soon Huerta returned to be jailed. In prison Huerta became ill seriously, and allowed him to meet with his family on January 13, 1916. He died because of cirrhosis of the liver. In this moment, the North American government already counted on sufficient evidences to judge him by his subversive activities.



Source: Information cocomplied by the National Institute of Historic Studies of the Mexican Revolution, taken from the Porrúa Dictionary of History, Biography, and Geography of Mexico City, Porrúa, México City 1986.